


Never Say I Love You

by WeCanDance



Category: Lupin III
Genre: Action, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Drama, Emotions, F/M, Heist, Hero Lupin, Human Trafficking, Non-romantic love, Other, Presumably Romantic Love, intentionally vague
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29948910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeCanDance/pseuds/WeCanDance
Summary: Duplicity is an inevitable part of life as a thief. Lupin uses this trickery to his advantage, this time to gain the trust of a human trafficker for a heist with stakes higher than any diamond.But a life of lies makes one skeptical of everything, including declarations of love.
Relationships: Arsène Lupin III/Mine Fujiko
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. 1

On the other side of a table strewn with scrawled plans for a master heist, the tiny red phone belonging to the master thief lit up with a message. 

The message was important enough, but he didn’t know that yet. Now, it was just a potential distraction from the delicate work of preparing for a major heist. Lupin III urged himself to ignore it. 

“Now isn’t the time to get emotional,” he muttered to himself, and keyed through drone footage on his laptop. He zoomed in on a security guard and squinted at the piece on his hip. A beretta. Presumably the guards had all been issued something like that and wouldn’t be hesitant to use them, considering the value of the haul and the ruthlessness of those in this business. 

But Lupin’s eye twitched towards the message, labeled from “Fujicakes.” He could just check and make sure she wasn’t asking him anything heist-related, as she was scheduled to usher the victims, translate, make sure they were reunited with their families, keep them calm, and provide first aid if needed. 

As it turned out, the message wasn’t about any of that. Jigen returned from the bathroom just in time to see his partner fling the phone onto the couch and cross his arms with furrowed brows. The gunman cocked his head in confusion. “Everything OK?” The phone, with the open message, landed face-up on the couch, and he stole a glance. 

“i love you”

This is what upset the master thief?

“Nothing,” Lupin responded and uncrossed his arms, not exactly answering the question. “Fuji’s probably just trying to get something from me.”

“But there’s nothing to ‘get’ in this heist,” Jigen said as he pulled out a chair and sat down, casually shifting some of Lupin’s diagrams around and studying them. One was an exceptionally detailed drawing of a shipping container and a front loader. “I know she doesn’t want any humans for her jewelry case.”

Lupin shrugged. “We’ll figure out what she wants eventually. You saw the message right? What a load. Hate when people say that.” 

Jigen looked up, fingers still on the diagram. “I love you?”

“I said don’t say it.” 

“You don’t want people to love you?” 

“I don’t want to be lied to.”


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang prepares to betray Nakasu after working with him for years.

“This should be their last meeting,” said Jigen, fiddling with the rim of his hat. “Lupin’s just making extra sure that Nakasu doesn’t suspect anything. Acting like he’s there to help the transfer. He’s not even sending a calling card this time.” 

Fujiko nodded, idly watching the drone footage of the storage facility for the dozenth time. “I can’t believe we all bought that vox tech from Nakasu for years without knowing that he was selling  _ people _ on the side.” 

“That’s what we get for running with scoundrels, I guess. But we never would have known if the bastard didn’t trust Lupin, and that sort of trust only comes from working together for years.” Jigen pulled a beer from the fridge. “I don’t know if Nakasu’s work with The Second helped or hurt, even.” 

Fukiko eyed the beverage suspiciously. She wasn’t sure he should start drinking when they were 12 hours from such a dangerous heist. One misstep or forgotten tidbit of information and someone would end up with spilled guts. That being said, she hadn’t seen Jigen lose his cool, so he must know what he’s doing.

“I’m just wondering, Fuji,” he said after a swill. “What do you want out of this?”

___________________________________________________________

“I presume the extra shipping containers are to obscure the real cargo,” Lupin asked casually while pouring himself a glass of scotch from Nakasu’s bar. “Can you ensure that none of them end up on top of the one with our product?”

Nakasu had at least 20 years on Lupin but looked as sharp as ever. Rolex, diamond cufflinks, Armani suit, and a thousand-yard stare. He was leaning back against his desk, arms folded. “And why wouldn’t we want a dummy shipping container on top of the real thing? It would be better to obscure it. If customs checks something, it will be the easiest one to access.”

Lupin studied Nakasu’s face, hoping that he was not losing the trafficker’s trust, and being especially careful not to seem like he was desperate to maintain it. 

“A container on top,” Lupin explained, “would block some of the airflow. There are hardly enough holes as it is for our product to breathe, considering the number of them. Especially when they start to panic, which they will, they’ll use the air faster. We’re not selling corpses, are we?” 

Nakasu laughed heartily, reaching a wide hand to cover his eyes. Gold rings glinted off the fluorescent lights in his office, and Lupin gave his iconic smirk. 

“And that’s why I hired you,” Nakasu responded, lowering his hands to rest his palms on the desk behind him. “There are so many moving parts in this, we need someone with your eye for detail to make sure everything is in order. Otherwise it could all go south with one errant move.” 

“You’re no amateur yourself,” Lupin responded, his turn to flatter. Complimenting a kidnapper felt wrong, but he had done worse in the pursuit of rescue. “Your voice tech is top of the line. When I learned you were doing a ‘matchmaking service,’ I knew I had to get in on it.” He downed the scotch and turned his back on Nakasu to put the glass down on the bar. 

Behind him was the voice of a man he had presumed dead for over a decade. 

“It helped  _ me _ a lot too.”

______________________________________

“Pardon?” Fujiko asked, a hand on her hip and another on the back of a chair.

“What do you want from this heist?” Jigen said, knowing he probably won’t get an accurate answer. “If you can call it that. There’s no cash, no diamonds. What are you angling for?”

Fujiko narrowed her eyebrows in offense, but realized Jigen was sincere. It was a fair question, after all. She rarely, if ever, took unpaid jobs. 

“I just thought it would be the noble thing to do.” 

“Noble? Not exactly your style.” 

“I know,” she sighed, placing her other hand on the back of the chair and bending over in thought. “I never would have put this together. But heroics  _ is _ Lupin’s style, and this is his hero job. And I wanted to help him with this. Because he’s noble, and I thought I should be more like that.”

She paused.

“And that’s what I love about him.”


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A young Lupin III learns the art of the escape.

It had been 25 years since the Second and Third stood silently at the kitchen window, watching the garbage truck slowly compress the trash in the back. 

The younger Lupin didn’t understand why his father wanted him to watch it until it was finished with the crush. The older one turned away and said with finality, “Au Revoir, Bijoux.” 

Goodbye Bijoux? Why was the older Lupin bidding farewell to Bijoux, their much-loved pet rat?

The truck drove away, and the younger Lupin realized. Wide-eyed, he ran to the spot in the living room where he kept the rat cage.  _ Had _ kept it. Now there was nothing but lines in the dust on an empty table. 

_ Au Revoir, Bijoux. Je t'ai aimé. _

Perhaps, as the maw of the trash compactor had come down, it had warped the metal cage in a way that created an opening for the rat to escape through. After all, both living Lupins trained their smaller charges in the art of the narrow escape. 

However, Bijoux, unable to speak, didn’t have the power of manipulation on her side. Words would work as well as a gun in overpowering an opponent, humans knew. 

Manipulation was one of the most effective methods of escape, but a little boring, the young Arsene lamented as an action-oriented thief. In his youth, he had learned dozens of methods of escape after being locked in rooms dozens of times. First, lock picking. Then, when The Second pitched a heavy bookcase against the door, The Third tried removing a window screen and angling down to the ground on sheets he had tied together. Once he scrambled up to the roof and slid down a rain gutter. Once he made a recording of his own voice and planted the player in various rooms in the house. Before being locked inside one, he slipped away unnoticed, and let the player convince his father otherwise. 

One day in a stripped basement, he had nothing. The room was bare but for the clothes on his back. The door was heavily blocked, there were no vents or windows to crawl through, no tools to remove the hinges from the door, and nothing to press against in order to force the door open with his legs. Hours passed, and he started to feel the walls closing in on him. Like a trapped rat. No time to panic, though. He still had his athleticism and his intellect, and he would carry that with himself everywhere. Time to try the human tactic. 

“Help!” the young thief called as desperately as he could muster, and waited. “Help, you need to let me out!”

Eventually his father came to the door. “You know the rules,” he called back gruffly.

“Game over, I hurt myself. I’m bleeding!”

The older man paused. “Bad?” 

“Yes, I’m real hurt.” 

He heard a shuffling of the blockade, then a turning of the lock. Bingo. As soon as it opened, Arsene darted out of the basement. He didn’t get far, though, as his father grabbed the back of his shirt. “Where are you hurt?” 

The younger smirked characteristically. “I’m not. I was simply using the tools available to me to escape.” 

“Tools?”

“I used your concern against you. Creative, eh?”

The elder frowned. “You shouldn’t have done that, Arsene. That’s not going to work in the real world.”

“And why not?” 

“I only opened the door because I love you. No one else will.”

**Author's Note:**

> Critiques welcome!


End file.
